Cattle Branding

(1/17) > >>

Hoochie Papa:
We spent May Long Weekend camping at a friends farm. Why? I'm glad you asked!! It was the annual branding weekend. This is when we round up all the cows and their calves into a pen. Separate the cows and calves (which can get a little hairy sometimes), and then we take the calves, give them an ear tag, a vaccination, and brand them.
For those that dont know, branding is when we heat up a specifically shaped piece of iron (usually in the shape of a letter) and burn the side of the calf for identification of posession purposes. It's archaic and barbaric I know, but up here, it's part of our heritage. And the bull calves- we turn them into steers.

So how it work is we have some guys on horses in the pen. They will rope the calf by the back two legs and drag them close to the branding pots. Two guys then jump on the calf. One on the head and one on the back feet. Hold tight. You do not want to get kicked by one of these guys.

Here are some of the ropers we had.

This is the branding pot. This is where we heat up the irons. Behind, you can see two guys holding down a calf waiting for it to get branded.

Here is a couple of me branding the calves.

My daughters job was to take a yellow marker and draw a line down the calf's back after it had been done. This way, the ropers could see from above which calves needed to be caught yet. Everyone has a job at a branding. -This is not my distended stomach in the pic.

My oldest son got in there and wrestled some calves too. He did really good for a city kid. Even when one calf kicked at the wrong time, and he got the needle stabbed into his hand. He kept going though.

This is me with my daughter holding the back end of a calf. She was not scared at all.

And some city kids learned how fun playing in the hay bales could be.

Some of you may be able to guess whats in the bucket. Hint: Yummy!!!

It was really good to get my kids out and teach them about this stuff. They all worked hard and did not get paid a dime for any of it. We got fed, and made some new friends. I really hope they took some life lessons away from that weekend. We are already booked in for next year!!!

mxvet57:
Cool :bigok:

I can just hear PETA Now. :lol:

black hills:
:thumbsup:

of course you realize this thread will go down hill fast, don't you????

city folks.....and all ;)

mxvet57:
Quote from: black hills on May 29, 2012, 07:58:22 AM

:thumbsup:

of course you realize this thread will go down hill fast, don't you????

city folks.....and all ;)

Hey I'm a city folk an i have no problem with it.

SalsaShark:
Very cool.

I remember doing this with my family when I was a kid. While I was a bit more of a spectator than your daughter, I still remember it 30+ years later.

Navigation

 Message Index